


A World to Change

by Kaoupa



Series: A Pink Planet [11]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, F/M, Fantastic Racism, Gem/Human Hybrids (Steven Universe), Gem/Human Relationships (Steven Universe), Immigration & Emigration, No War AU, Slow To Update
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2019-11-12 22:57:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18020066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaoupa/pseuds/Kaoupa
Summary: As Steven goes to Earth for the first time in his life without his mother's presence or a half-dozen plus Quartz bodyguards in the area beforehand, the world is heating up. Things on Earth have been peaceful for the last six thousand years ever since the gems came, and everyone has what they need. The shattering rate for failures is the lowest in gem space, and humanity is slowly spreading to the stars.But in spite of this, there's still anger and discrimination between races and peoples - and the rest of the Gem Empire isn't as fond of the Pink Court as its members are.





	1. Building Sparks

It was, by the standards of almost anyone on the planet, a very nice city. In the lower latitudes, it was fairly warm and humid overall, and had been one of the most stable nation-states on Earth for the last six thousand years.

Plants of the nation that in another universe would have been called Thailand sprawled over the ground, with the humid and warm air ensuring that most humans who weren’t used to it would be sweating madly at the heat. Trees were kept in fairly ordered rows, or concentrated in a number of parks, mostly. Though there were still occasional reports of repair crews, sometimes including a Bismuth or having to call in a Rose Quartz to reorient the roots safely.

The buildings were a rather odd mixture, as well - in the more industrial areas, the architecture was vast, tended to have many stories, and often only had one color on the outside. Also, it was made of the unique metal that all gem structures were made of, which left it with a very extensive lifespan. 

While white was the most common color there (since it repelled heat), pink was oddly common as well. Most of the structures were also rather plain in appearance, whether due to concerns about “form over function”, or just not wanting to spend all the time and effort needed for the forms that would allow the builders to make the outsides fancy.

On the outskirts, on the other hand, there were dozens of houses that looked almost nothing like the skyscrapers. Made up of wood and concrete, and all of them were stilt-elevated to be almost six feet off the ground. In contrast to the skyscrapers, typically the only gem metal involved in their creation was the stilts they were built on or some of the appliances inside.

There were a few temples, of course, that mixed the two styles of building - a base of gem “metal” that would resist time, with the other parts being composed of artwork, statues, and other beautiful works of art - and often, of music. Around here, they were mostly devoted to Buddhism, with several statues of the monk displayed proudly - often made out of gem metal to ensure their near permanence.

And wasn’t that just such a human thing, to combine two things together that normally would never have met and didn’t seem like they should have?

Pearl had always been annoyed that so few of the caretakers listened to her (or cared) when she said that wasn’t what he had looked like, though.

  
  
  


“Peaaarll!” 

Sighing as she came out of her thoughts, the (technically) servant gem walked after the young human. “Yes, Steven?” She called, watching the young man she was watching wave at her furiously. “I know you want to get to the food stands, but-”

She was interrupted mid sentence by the boy that she was watching. “Pearl, I’m hungry! Come on, we can cut in line, right?” Normally, Steven would have been willing to wait as long as he needed, in order to get food and not cheat people of their place in line.

But he was starving! He’d gotten out of bed really early in the morning - and he’d been so eager to go see more of the world that he’d forgotten to eat breakfast.

Pearl sighed at her ward’s antics. “Steven, we can’t cut in line, it would be improper to do so. But we can get you lunch, just wait your turn.”

“Awww…” But seeing clearly that his caretaker had made up her mind, Steven nodded. “What do you think I should get today?”

“Steven, I wouldn’t know what to tell you about eating...” Pearl frowned, slightly annoyed that she couldn’t help her ward. “Just be careful what you try, I have heard more than once that the make food very spicy here, and your taste buds are still sensitive because of your age.”

“It’ll be okay, Pearl!” Steven grinned up at her as the street that carried the many food stands came into view. “Wooow! What should I get, oh! I don’t know what I want!”

Smiling at his enthusiasm, Pearl walked a few feet behind Steven, watching as he ran from stand to stand, trying to see what they all made (and a few times, having the patrons refuse to let him into the line - she knew they should’ve come before lunchtime). Eventually, however, Steven had been directed towards a stand that apparently sold a rather simple curry, and also had a lot of rice to lessen the heat for the non-natives. Steven wouldn’t burn his tongue due to the spices, to Pearl’s relief.

 

As the person in front of them walked away holding a bowl of curry, Pearl and Steven walked to the front of the line. “A child bowl of curry for him, please. In a adult bowl, with plenty of rice.” Pearl requested politely.

“You must not be from around here, then?” The stall’s owner asked curiously, walking back to a large metal tank, where it seemed the curry was cooking. Oddly, there weren’t any heating implements she could see, but the tank still seemed to be very warm... 

“Nope! I’m going on an adventure! I’m gonna see the world!” Steven’s eyes shone like stars as his food was ladeled out, and followed by a generous number of rice scoops.

Pearl smiled at his enthusiasm - the enthusiasm of someone who was still young, and who hadn’t practically been to every single city on Earth multiple times. “I am taking care of him while we are on our trip.”

“Adventure!” Steven interjected.

The stall owner gave her a friendly nod before holding out the bowl. “Now, could I get your identification, please?” she asked politely, pointing to the list besides her, where a electronic screen hung in the air, with a list of names printed on it.

“Uh…” Steven looked rather awkward, having already taken the bowl from the patron’s hands.

“Don’t worry, Steven, i’ll take care of it.” Pearl absently said, before hastily pulling out a card and scanning it up against the screen. Her gem type - well, name, whichever you preferred - and her cabochan both appeared on the screen, registering her as the most recent person to approve of the stand.

 

 

“Hey Pearl, why do you think that there wasn’t anyone in line?” Steven asked as they walked away, with the rainbow-colored gem frowning in thought.

“Hey, is that Ruby 3HU’s curry? Gimme!”

Before Steven could react, someone shoved him backwards, with Pearl getting thrown down besides him.

As the two got up, ten feet away, a rather large amethyst stood, with Steven’s bowl of curry in her hands, and a blue diamond symbol on her chest.

And she had Steven’s bowl in her hands, for the second before she threw it into her mouth, bowl and all.

“Hey, that was mine!” Steven snapped.

“Not anymore. Tell me if you get another, human!” The gem leered at them for a few seconds before wandering off, seemingly in a good mood fueled by the one she had just ruined.

Pearl scowled after her.

She was extremely tempted, in that second, to call in that amethyst, and have her rank stripped, or have her sent back to Blue Diamond.

But then that would potentially get questions asked by people she didn’t want asking them about why she was sticking up for a human child when she didn’t have any children. So Pearl just scowled in anger and defeat, before sighing again. “Come on, Steven. Let’s get you some more curry.”

Looking sadly at his hands, where his bowl had been, Steven nodded.

  
  
  


“Let me guess, someone stole your curry?” the vendor who had given Steven his food asked, as he and Pearl walked back up to the stand again.

“How did you know!?” Steven looked at her in awe, before his eyes became star-filled, “Was your mom a sapphire?!”

Looking slightly overwhelmed, the young woman smiled. “Actually, other way around for gem and parent.”

And before Pearl could ask, she pulled off her shirt.

“STEVEN, DON’T LOOK!” Pearl shrieked, nearly reaching a subsonic pitch as she covered his eyes.

“What is it? What is it?” The still-innocent boy asked in confusion, before gasping. “PEARL, I’M BLIND!”

“Sorry.” The young woman looked incredibly awkward as she pulled her shirt back down. The brief flash, however, had allowed Pearl to see the red-colored gem situated directly above her… bra.

“Your father was a ruby?” She asked, curiously.

“Yup! Going to be 64 in a few months, and I still feel like i’m 24!” She replied, before putting her hand on the side of the pot as she started ladling out another bowl of curry and rice, and handing it to Steven. “You want one, Pearl?”

“I’d rather not, thank you. Have a good day, though!” 

"I will! Oh, and don't forget your spices, ma'am." Dropping a few packets into her hands, Pearl stored them in her gem as she walked after Steven, absently noticing that she'd been given fire salts.

She still had memories of the events when they had first been toned down enough that they were deemed safe for human consumption.

The gem testers had also neglected to test "human consumption" with humans that were't from here, or Mexico.

There had been so many fires that year. And the discovery that some fire salts combusted when exposed to water...

Smiling politely, Pearl carefully guided Steven away from the stand, and away from the area where they’d run into the Amethyst. “Now, Steven, let’s go see if we can find the local guards…”

  
  
  


“Pearl, why did she steal my food?” Sitting down with food again - this time, with a bowl of less spicy rat na that they’d gotten far away from the first food vendor.

“Well, I would assume that for some reason, she liked the taste of the curry. And possibly the bowl.” Pearl sighed again - Quartzes eating tableware had always been a pet peeve of hers.

“But… why did she steal it, then?” Steven asked.

Pearl sighed. “If I had to guess… she didn’t think that your satisfaction was as important as hers, Steven. People can be like that. Gems in particular, especially towards humans.”

“...Why?”

Pearl didn’t have a reply for him.


	2. Growths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are going perfectly, until they aren't. That could probably be summed up as the motto of the Gem Empire (even though it would be a total lie to say it).

Their walk towards the local guard precinct was a rather slow one, with Steven stopping every few hundred feet to fawn over a plant or a statue of something or someone. Pearl made no attempt to stop him. Seeing the combined architecture of gems and humanity had always been a personal pleasure of hers.

And architecture reminded her of how Bismuth was -

“Pearl, what’s that?”

Interrupted from her mental reverie, Pearl frowned as she saw the building that Steven was pointing to - which had a lot of green on it. “It appears to be moss, Steven.”

“Well, why’s it growing so fast?”

“What?” Pearl looked up at the building, then felt her eyes widen a little as she saw the top third of the building - it was white. And it was being enveloped by green, slowly but steadily. After a twenty second period, and looking carefully, another half-story had been enveloped. “A geminal?!” Immediately, she took a deep breath. “Steven, we have to go, now.”

“Why?” Steven had a puzzled look on his face.

“I’ll explain later!” Pearl plucked him off the ground within a second, already running now towards one of the alleyways - hopefully, they would get there soon.

And it was one of the days of the week where students and children didn’t have to go to school, so hopefully the building wasn’t too crowded. An ominous creak echoed out through the area, from the structure that the geminal moss was steadily growing over and into.

Pearl ran faster, and pulled out a touchscreen from her gem as she did.

  
  


“So, we’re not sending anyone down to guard them?” Amethyst 8XI questioned in a confused tone.

“Nope. They’re just walking around by themselves - the boss says Steven’s got to see Earth for himself without anyone “skewing” his judgement.” The short Amethyst across from her didn’t seem to be all that pleased with what she was saying either, and emitted a loud groan. “I wanna see Earth again! My shift here’s lasted for the last THIRTY YEARS!”

“Hey, at least you get to leave the palace or your town and all. Shorty Carnelian and Skinny Jasper say they’ve been trying to get a vacation in another city for _decades_.” 8XI was trying to comfort her sister, but she didn’t sound much happier.

Amethyst didn’t argue with that, but she still moaned. “Ugghhhh… it’s so boriiiinggg...”

WWWWWAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!! WWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Both of the Quartzes snapped to attention within a second as the alarm went off, all the training they’d gotten from Crazy Lace Agate snapping back to the forefront of their minds. “Amethysts! REPORT!” The screen behind them both pops into existence, and both of the two siblings saluted reflexively. The fact they were saluting a Pearl didn’t even cross their minds at first, at least before their reflexes gave way to their minds.

Amethyst grins quickly. “Yo, P! What’s-”

“Amethyst, this is not the time.” The tone in Pearl’s voice caused her to snap back to attention. “We have a situation that needs a flame company immediately. There’s a moss geminal that has turned malignant down in Bangkok.”

Both of the two nodded. “You want us to come?” Amethyst started chanting mentally _please say yes, please say yes._

  


“Not yet! Steven’s supposed to be passing himself off as, well, you know.” Pearl didn’t say what she had meant, but the Amethysts understood even without her saying it. Even if she trusted them, and the line she had to the Moon Palace of Pink Diamond was _supposed_ to be secure from outside influences, none of them believed for a second that the other Diamonds wouldn’t have someone listening in on them.

“And Pink Diamond’s personal guard would be way harder to explain than a few dozen Rubies for just one geminal, right.” 8XI nodded through the screen, understanding. “How bad is this thing anyways, if you need a whole company?”

“It had already started consuming a skyscraper when Steven pointed it out, and it was most of the way to the top.” Pearl replied darkly. “It was moving fast enough that I doubt it was there an hour ago, too.”

The two Quartzes both looked surprised, then 8XI ran offscreen to raise the alarm. “You think someone released it on purpose or something?” Amethyst asked, the mirth normally on her face overtaken by a serious look.

“I wouldn’t be surprised, no. It’s apparently feeding on the building itself, hopefully there was nobody inside…”

Pearl’s concern about the (hopefully, lack of) deaths was cut off mid sentence by Steven’s voice. It sounded uncertain. “Pearl, is it supposed to be doing, uh... spawning stuff?”

Pearl wasn’t sure what that meant.

She knew what “spawning” was - it had given the world Steven, for one, but people rarely used the phrase “spawn” for children or each other except as an insult.

And the worried tone he was using, so very different from his usual tone of joy, told her that she probably wasn’t going to like what she saw if she looked.

She did anyways, pulling out a pair of binoculars as she did.

She realized immediately that she had been right.

The moss had grown to more or less envelop most of the building, but it seemed to have actually stopped growing near the top, which was still a little white. It was growing near the bottom now, outwards and towards the buildings nearby.

And the parts that were growing outwards were also growing upwards. Bulbs were starting to appear, sprouting all over the building where the moss had taken root. Not very big ones, but they hadn’t been there a few minutes ago.

Less than a second later, she turned back to the screen. “Amethyst? Belay that last order.”

“Huh?” Amethyst looked confused.

“Make that three flame companies. And… you and the others may come down yourself too.”

Amethyst’s concern was replaced by joy. “WOOOOO! You rock, P!”

  


Hiding at the end of an alley several feet behind the foremost of his _many_ adoptive mother figures, Steven quivered, very nervous. “Pearl, was that geminal supposed to do this?”

“Rest assured - Steven - it was _not_!” Pearl bit out between her hard-light teeth, the pauses in her sentence coming from all the stabbing and slashing she was doing with her sword.

The large moss creature she was busy fighting didn’t seem to notice that much, though, beyond just continually trying to move forwards. She was pushing it back, but if it got past her… it would be heading towards Steven.

She would not let that happen as long as she could still move.

“Look out!” For a second, Pearl was confused, before she noticed a problem - there was another spawn coming up behind the first one, and this one wasn’t quite as big - small comfort.

Then, a shadow fell over them.

“RAAAAGH!!” A yell caught her attention along with the shadow - almost fatally, as she only just managed to avoid a massive mossy fist. The geminal’s spawn didn’t avoid the large on-fire fist that came from the massive Ruby fusion behind it, though. And though it hadn’t been seriously hurt (or on fire) before, well, that issue was rapidly solved.

“Hm… Fire, then.” Pearl muttered to herself, absently watching as the four-gem fusion mashed the magical moss monster to pieces, the excessive amounts of both heat and brute force seemingly overcoming the creature’s ability to piece itself back together. _Sloppy, though._

“COOL!” A starry-eyed Steven watched from behind her as the former monster was reduced to charcoal.

The Ruby fusion, looking down at the starry-eyed human child, grinned smugly. Then, she noticed Pearl standing in front of him, her sword humming with electricity. “Where’d you get that?” She asked, frowning.

“It was a gift from a friend of mine. That’s all you need to know. Is the geminal contained yet?” Pearl asked.  

The Ruby frowned. “We’re using a bunch of flamethrowers on those things and the building… You aren’t gonna fight, are you? Pearls shouldn’t be fighting stuff like this.” The frown, at this point, could be taken as either chivalric concern or condescension towards someone “weaker”.

Considering how fusions worked, it could have been both, for all she knew. “Uh, guys?”

And both options infuriated Pearl. “And you are not in charge of me. So I would appreciate it if you stopped talking about things you don’t know about.”

“GUYS!?” Steven’s voice was filled with terror, and Pearl immediately forgot her anger.

“STEVEN!” She shrieked like a bird and turned around, towards the boy - and the second moss monster that she had somehow forgotten about looming towards him.

Fast as she could, she pulled out her sword, but it was already right there in front of -!

“Go AWAY!” He yelled, shoving the spawn’s leg.

It stumbled backwards, several feet, right within slashing distance. Pearl didn’t question it, and stabbed the area that seemed to be its head. Judging by the thrashing that resulted, it didn’t like that.

Then, the Ruby jumped over it, landing just in front of Steven, and she reached out with a smoldering hand.

  


Twenty minutes later, the short battle had mostly ended, with all of the monsters contained or reduced to ash, and a group of humans with flamethrowers and Rubies had entered the building with order to reduce anything green they found to cinders.

Steven had already been sent off to a nearby Warp pad, this time by himself, with a pair of Quartzes giving him directions and following him from a distance. Pearl was not going to take any chances with the safety of Earth’s heir (and her "adopted" son).

And when she was done here, she wasn’t going to take any chances that whatever caused this was overlooked, either.

“So, you’re saying that you think someone released this on purpose?” Jasper frowned at her Diamond’s Pearl. “Why?”

“I wouldn’t know. I’m just glad that Steven wasn’t hurt…” Pearl sighed.

“We all are.” Jasper smiled. “Crazy Lace and I had to order the whole garrison to not come down and smash this thing for Steven. And boss was just hysterical when she found out...”

“How is she doing?” Pearl’s concern for the Guard was pushed aside by her concern for Pink Diamond.

“Greg’s calming her down. But she’s been really stressed lately with how Steven’s been out of her sight so much, and this didn’t help.” Jasper reported without hesitation, before looking down. “And the other Diamonds having been calling more and more over the last year for updates on her colonies and everything else. She… could probably use you up there, Pearl.”

Pearl just sighed, but was already preparing herself for a few months on the moon palace. “Fine. Send me a list with the members of the Elite Guard, preferably the ones who can blend in with a crowd.”

“Shouldn’t that be Pink Diamond’s decision?” Jasper looked at Pearl with a questioning look.

The look Pearl shot her back was a look that didn’t broker argument. “She’s already busy enough without me up there, Jasper. And this is what I do.”

Jasper sighed. But she didn’t argue. “Understood.”

  


“So … Pearl’s not gonna be here anymore?” Steven asked with a pouty tone in his voice, the one that usually got him anything he wanted within a few seconds. (Most of the people he knew growing up had never totally managed to grasp saying “no”).

“Nope! But hey, look at it this way, you’re stuck with me instead till we head back to Beach City!” the short (she was his height) purple Quartz across from him grinned.

Steven’s pout vanished. “AWESOME!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this took a while, and a large part of that was because I sort of wasn’t too interested in writing this story for a bit. Not sure if I’m going to make this a full-blown story, to be honest. It might be more like a series of oneshots at different points in time, providing looks into this universe.
> 
> Also, I haven’t watched the first season of Steven Universe in a while, so I might not have a total grasp on everyone’s personalities. But with that said, I can and will tell you in advance that while war was avoided and Earth is probably the nicest place to live in the whole Gem Empire, not everything is going to be all utopian for the Pink Court. 
> 
> Pink Diamond still has to obey the rules set up for gems, and even if the other Diamonds don’t care what humanity does and are letting her run her Court without them overseeing/overruling everything, she’s outnumbered vastly if she wants to make any serious changes.


	3. Departures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amethyst takes over watching Steven from Pearl, and heads off to somewhere not that different from the place they left, which is still going to change everything for Steven.

“But why can’t we stay?” Steven had another pout on his face, one that Amethyst was doing her best to resist as the two warped away from Bangkok to a “transitory” warp location out in the middle of the Tunguska Sea. It had been long keyed specifically for Pink Diamond and her closest Court members.

Needless to say, there was nobody there as the two of them walked onto the large platform. Most of the gems at the Palaces didn’t stay here that long - or leave their posts that often.

“Ugghhh… Pearl said that they’d be investigating that moss thingy and all the stuff it spawned for a while, okay? The whole city’s gonna be crawling with guards and investigators and people who aren’t gonna let anyone go anywhere unobserved.” Amethyst sort of wanted to stay anyways - people in that sort of mood had the best reactions when they got pranked. And probably the best reactions if Steven could just pull rank… but that’d be missing the whole point of “incognito” and “normal life”, Pearl had said. Killjoy. Even if she could see why.

“So… where are we going instead, then?” If anything could be said about Steven at this point, it was that he didn’t let his disappointment lower his spirits for long.

“Eh… I dunno, let’s find out!” Without missing a beat, Amethyst willed the warp pad to take them away.

Wherever they went, it was bound to be interesting!

  
  


“Booyah! Got it!” Amethyst had to admit, it seemed her mind had picked a great spot to go.

The Ice Palace was always a great place to stay! Snow year-round - there were ice castles built by gems and a few humans decades ago, with sculptures inside that a lot of people said rivaled anything on Homeworld, and were much easier to change or alter.

Why hadn’t she come here recently?

“CCCCOOOOLLLDD!” Came the voice of Steven behind her, where he was huddled as much as he could.

Oh. Right. Humans didn’t like cold, usually.

The warp pad burned to life for the second time in less than ten seconds. And they were gone.

The only beings that really noticed them leaving were a pair of Tourmalines that had been working cheerfully on a 40-foot snowgem.

  
  


“You better now, Steven?” Amethyst was pretty sure he hadn’t been out in the open too long to get seriously affected, even if Steven had been all human. And he was old enough that this was about the time that gem hybrid powers apparently started appearing, according to Pearl.

“You okay, dude?” Amethyst asked again when he didn’t reply immediately.

“I-I think so…” Steven didn’t _sound_ okay, but he wasn’t totally coughing up blood, or freezing, so that had to be good! And she wasn’t an expert on human physiology, but she was pretty sure that the best approach to dealing with severe cold was to stay in motion, and just stay warm.

“Come on, man! Let’s go look!” Without waiting for him to reply, Amethyst picked Steven up and walked off the warp pad, before realizing that she had no idea where they were. “Uh, okay… it’s warm, and…”

“We’re in India!” Steven cut in cheerfully, looking around.

That got Amethyst blinking. “Uh, how’d you know that?”

“Pearl and mom and dad always wanted to make sure I knew all the big cities and stuff!” Steven pointed at a sign visible out the window with two languages on it - Gem and Hindi, both reading “Welcome to Mumbai, India”. “Well, mostly they just showed me how to tell what language it was, since that was easier.”

“Okay then, let’s go down and see stuff!” Without waiting, Steven cheerfully walked towards the door leading down into the gem “headquarters” in the area from the warp station. Sighing,  his older sister/bodyguard walked after him.

Now to deal with all the bureaucrats who would be trying to get attention by attaching themselves to one of the first human-gem hybrids. Didn’t matter where she went, it seemed there were always a lot of politicians and managers whose ambition outweighed their morality, and it had always been one of her favorite jobs telling them to shove off.

Then, an idea hit. "Hey, Steven! I know where to go!" She yelled after him.

"Really?!" Steven turned around, eyes already shining. And within a minute, the two were on the Warp Pad again, flowing away in the stream of light and magic.

  


“So dad, why am I coming to work with you today instead of mom?” Connie asked, as her father and her sat on one of the trains leading to his job, her stomach growling. She hadn’t even managed to get breakfast before her father got her out of bed, saying that they’d have to eat when they got to his job.

Doug shrugged. “She had to leave town this morning. There was apparently a… something happened in another major city, Bangkok I think. And she had to go help at their hospital and she’s not expected to leave for awhile. So you’re staying with me today, then!”

Connie nodded from the seat she was in, before turning back to the mass of transportation vehicles on the road that led towards the palace - motorized or motorless, countless people both human and gem were heading to the vast park around the Treetop Palace, hoping to catch a glimpse of either the natural wonders inside. Or possibly, that rarest of miracles - a glimpse of their Diamond. “Do you think that you’ll have to do any guard stuff today, dad?”

“I doubt it, sweetie. Not much has happened around here lately, so hopefully we can just talk while we guard the walls today.” Doug sighed, more than a few incidents coming into mind where people had tried to get through the guards and the walls to the lower levels of the Palace. They typically got caught before they made it two hundred meters.

Connie nodded, before looking sad. “And… We’re still not allowed in the palace, right?”

Doug just sighed and shook his head.

  
  


Amethyst felt another smile cross her face as she looked out at the mass of roots and leaves that made up the Warp Pad chamber of the Treetop Palace, and the metals that covered the floor, forming a few walkways. Electric light weren't visible here, in contrast to most architecture - it had been decreed long ago that these places were to focus on a theme, and not go outside of it.

It had more than paid off. The Palaces never stopped being amazing, really. Even to gems.

“Oooh! Where should we go first, Amethyst!? Oh, there’s so much to do here!” Steven seemed to have forgotten about the freezing cold he’d been exposed to just a few minutes ago, already. Of course, with all the amazing views from up here, how could she blame him?

“Woah, whoa, cool your horses, little man!” Amethyst was still amazed by how Steven could just be so… energetic, at times. Weren’t humans supposed to get less energetic as they got older?! It seemed he got more energy added every day! “We’ve got a ton of places where we can go, but we should probably check here out first.”

“But gem stuff is boring!” Steven pouted at her, and she shrugged.

“Well, yeah I know. But your mom wants everyone to know where you are, and all, so we know where to go if you’re in trouble!” Amethyst shuddered. Pink Diamond… well, she hadn’t threatened anyone with serious bodily harm if Steven got hurt. At least, not directly. She’d just made his bodyguard schedule public in the Moon Palace. So everyone would know who to assign blame to if Steven was hurt on their watch.

“Okay…” Steven looked sort of saddened by that. Amethyst slapped his shoulder lightly. “Hey, cheer up, man! We can go wait for them to check up on us in the main window area! You can see the whole park from up there!”

“Oooooh! Cool!” Steven took off running instantly. In the wrong direction.

“Hey, wait up!” Amethyst yelled, chasing after him.

  
  


“Wow…” Connie couldn’t really stop herself from feeling a little impressed (and slightly upset) as she looked at the massive construct that she wasn’t allowed in hanging over their heads.

Even from this distance, the Treetop Palace, as it was generally known, was incredible to look at. Nobody was totally sure how all the trees in the area behind the walls had been “cultured” to grow big enough and together into the desired shape of a vast palace, even with the gem metals that it was built around.

“I guess it’s amazing, isn’t it?” Doug looked up at the massive construct. It was odd, to think that this massive building was only a few hundred years old. Apparently, its predecessor in the Yokuts’s territory had burned down, before the campaign to reduce the CO2 and methane levels in Earth’s atmosphere was started. And afterwards, Pink Diamond had decided that she wanted a change of scenery. She’d gotten to see that, at least.

“Yeah!” Connie wished she could have gone inside, but this was still cool. “Can I go with one of the the tour groups?”

For a second, Doug thought about it.

He shot the idea down within that same second, though. “Sorry, but it’s probably better if you stay here, Connie. I’d feel a lot better if you were somewhere that I know is safe.”

Connie looked sort of sad, looking down towards the area where the entrance to the park would be, far away. There’d been a group of children who’d turned up there earlier, all part of an apparent _clan_ , there were so many of them.

She hadn’t really seen anyone in her family except her parents for a few years, now. Or any of her friends.

Former friends at this point, really.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Palaces mentioned here are only some of the ones that exist. For reference, they're basically places for Pink Diamond to work when she wants a change of scenery from the Moon Palace/Base, and appreciate all of the life on Earth. They're very private, and typically the only people who get assigned there are "earthborn" gems (like, say, the Famethyst) or the "Crystal Gems" of this timeline, like Garnet, and Pearl.
> 
> Also, this was supposed to be only one part of a larger chapter... but I sort of lost interest in publishing the whole thing at once and it seemed that this chapter just wasn't wanting to get written.


	4. Ladies, Lords, and Swords

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Small issues can sometimes become big ones.

“Cooool!” Steven’s eyes practically sparkled as he looked out from the main viewing area down towards the park below. Not that anyone could blame him - even with details being unclear at this height, there was a lot of park to look at.

“Yeah! Don’t I take us to the best places?” Amethyst felt a little better now, since Steven seemed to have recovered. A little faster than she would have thought he would, too, in hindsight… well, he was half-Diamond.

“So, when do we get to go down there?” Steven looked down eagerly. There was so much down there - water, bogs, trees, animals…

“We don’t need to!” Amethyst pointed towards the center of the room, where a chair sized for someone much bigger than anyone there sat. “Your mom had a viewing chamber set up for the whole park here! It still can’t really do noise, but it’s great for viewing stuff.”

“Like the observation orb!” Steven remembered that strange artifact up in the moon base, located but a single flight of stairs beneath his mother’s main work room.

“Yup!” Amethyst watched from a distance as Steven ran over to the throne, before stopping.

“Uh, Amethyst?”

It was only at that point that the purple gem realized that Steven was far too short to make it up. “Right, hang on!” Quickly running over, Amethyst held out her hands, absently shapeshifting them into a fairly large platform. “Climb on!” As Steven climbed up onto the throne that belonged to his mother, he bounced in place eagerly, looking around at the view from it.

She had always told him when he was younger that, one day, he would likely be taking his place by her side, helping rule the Pink Court and the worlds under its banner. She had always told him that a lot of it was really boring, and he knew that doing paperwork and all that would be super dull… but besides that, he couldn’t wait!

  
  


Connie was bored already, and it had only been about three hours. Her father had let her leave the guard post that he was assigned to on the walls, so she could run the length of them to pass time. And the park was interesting to watch, but he hadn’t been willing to let her go down to the park by herself, at her age.

Connie just sighed. There wasn’t a network connection out here, except for the gems inside the Palace. At the hospital, the net had been freely available, and she could stream almost anything she wanted in no time at all - public institutions were like that. When she’d asked her father about it, he’d rolled his eyes and said the shutdown was due to “concerns” from the Agate in charge about someone “getting vital information on the layout or our Diamond’s will to someone who shouldn’t know.”

 _“I think it’s mostly just so that she could punish anyone who was caught slacking off during work hours.”_ Doug had sighed, before giving her a look filled with pity. “ _I’m sorry dear, but I didn’t think that much, and I can’t leave my post. You’ll have to find some way to keep yourself busy…_ ”

Connie slouched back in her seated pose against the wall, and sighed. She was disappointed, she’d admit that to anyone who asked - but she was pretty sure that anyone could have figured that out. Days at the hospital were at least interesting, in a morbid sort of way. Her mom had usually been willing to let her go read to some of the younger kids who had needed to come in for treatments. They hadn’t always understood what she’d been reading, but they’d always enjoyed how happy she was.

That, or they fell asleep because they didn’t understand what she was reading (which still helped, at least). But either way, she had never made any lasting friendships there. And it didn’t look like she’d be making one today either.

  
  


Steven waited. And waited. And waited. After ten seconds of nothing happening, he looked over the side of the seat to Amethyst, who was leaning against the terminal across from the throne. “So… when does it activate?”

“Uh, I think you’ve gotta say something to turn it on.” She shrugged, not really sure what that might be. Pink had never really assigned her to guard duty for her - she couldn’t stay still for the life of her. And the other Diamonds apparently complained when she had “off colors” as her guards.

“Uh… Observation thingy, activate, then?” Steven said out loud, not really sure if that would work.

After waiting about another five seconds, nothing happened, and Amethyst shrugged. “Well, I guess that wasn’t it-”

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” Came a loud voice from the side of the room. To Steven’s surprise, an Agate dashed into the chamber, not one he recognized. “THAT - HUMANS ARE NOT ALLOWED HERE! ESPECIALLY NOT ON PINK DIAMOND’S THRONE!”

“Great, it’s the no-fun patrol.” Amethyst muttered, before sighing. “Come on, Steven, let’s go-” Before she finished her sentence, there was a loud buzzing noise from the console, and a circle of hard light rose up from the circle of metal around the throne, before it turned into a scene from the jungle outside.

“Woah! Never mind!” She grinned again, turning around to take a look at the scenery. “Hey, there’s a rhino!” She said, pointing at the animal in question.

“Cool!” Steven hopped down from the throne within a second, before carefully running his hand over and through the skin of the rhino that wasn’t quite there. “I’ve never seen one up this close before!”

“Well, we can probably do anything you want with it, dude!” Amethyst looked around, ignoring the pounding that came from the outside of the hard light circle. It was probably just the Agate trying to force her way in or something - fat chance of that working.”So… watcha want to look at?” She whispered to him, still grinning.

“Oooh! Let’s go… um…” Steven realized that he wasn’t sure what he wanted to look at. Initially. “Let’s look at the palace from the outside!” Before he could realize that he wasn’t sure how to move the scene with the new technology, it began shifting almost instantly, and before the two knew it, they had a rather good view of the outside of the Palace, from about 200 meters away.

The walls kind of made the view worse, though. Steven frowned. “Take us up to the walls, please?”

“You don’t have to say please, dude, it’s a voice-activated machine.” Amethyst pointed out.

“But it’s nice to do it!” Steven looked around, already taking note of two of the human guards on the walls, and waving at them. Obviously, neither of them noticed - and even if they had physically been there, neither of them seemed to be directing much attention towards the rest of the wall. Or really much of the landscape below them - not that there was much happening at that moment. “Do you think that we could see the ocean from-”

To say something is cliche refers to, in a sense, something that has been overused. It usually refers to phrases, or words, or stereotypes. It’s not always present even with older thoughts and stories, but when someone says that something is “cliche”, they’ve usually got at least something of a point.

And with all that in mind, cliches are not always a bad thing. And not every overused story trope is called “cliche”.

Mutual love at first sight (as noted elsewhere by Garnet), is not something that really happens, at least unless supernatural events are involved.

It is very possible for there to be mutual _attraction_ at first sight, though, and for true love to grow from there. And often, that’s what really happens. People saying “they felt different” when they remember first seeing the person they were going to spend their life with often are just speaking through rose-tinted memories.

In the future, Steven would have a lot of ways that he remembered that precise moment. A lot of them would be cliche.

Right at that moment, though, Steven Diamond Universe’s main thought as he saw Connie Maheswaran for the first time was along the lines of “ _Wow she’s pretty._ ”

“If you want to see the ocean, south’s that way.” Amethyst pointed off towards part of the jungle, before realizing that Steven wasn’t saying anything. “Dude? What’s up?” Turning around, she quickly noticed what Steven was doing.

She knew that look, or at least a close approximation. Because it had appeared a lot more than once on Pink Diamond’s face. And whenever Pearl saw it, well…

When she’d seen it directed towards Greg, it had led to her spending a solid week inside the control room with their Diamond and not letting anyone else in. And the cameras inside being shut off, communications being made voice-only for that time, and later scans had revealed multiple background checks and psychological tests.

The guards just outside had sworn once they’d heard moaning and the sound of “Mmmmm...”

_Wait’ll everyone hears this!_

  
  


“Why - get out here, you two!” Moss Agate demanded, pounding on the wall of hard light that had formed around Pink Diamond’s throne. It didn’t give way - the technology reserved for the Diamonds wasn’t something that just anyone could use or activate on demand. Which didn’t explain how an Off Color and a human had somehow managed to do that.

“Is something wrong?”

The Agate spun around, furiously, saluting absently at the gem across from her. “Coyamito Agate, ma’am! An off-color Amethyst and a human have somehow activated Pink Diamond’s throne - I was just about to summon the guards to send them off to be questioned!”

Coyamito frowned. “Describe these two.”

Moss Agate scowled. “The Amethyst was maybe the size of a human child or a Ruby. And the human child was... “ She frowned. She’d barely paid any attention to the human. It looked like a… male? Was that how it worked?

Coyamito’s eyes already had recognition dawning in them, and she waved her hand. “It’s fine. Let them go.” The Moss Agate didn’t reply verbally, but her eyes almost bulged out of their sockets at the near blasphemy the Palace’s overseer had just committed. Not bothering to respond to that, Coyamito continued. “They’re both part of the staff at the Moon palace, Moss. They outrank you, and they’re some of our Diamond’s favorites.”

“She would let them use her throne?!” The Moss Agate all but screamed.

Coyamito Agate kept her mouth shut, for multiple reasons - among them, this Agate had only immigrated to Earth a few years ago, and she wasn’t sure how “loyal” the other gem was to their Diamond.

Secondly, there was an alarm going off, one that hadn’t been used at this location before - the signal for an attack on the walls.

Before Coyamito Agate could even open her mouth to shout orders, the hard light circle around the throne went down, and the Amethyst and the human jumped down from it, starting to run away.

“You two! Get to the safe room, there’s an attack. The wall guards should be able to handle it, though.”

Without waiting for an answer, Steven ran over to the main console across from his mother’s throne, and tapped into the monitor. An announcement page came up, and he sighed in relief before looking backwards. “Amethyst?!”

“Got it!” The purple quartz said, leaning forward. “EVERYONE! There’s a geminal outside attacking the walls, all interior guards are to immediately go and reinforce the ones on the exterior! Everyone who’s not a guard, get into the safe rooms, NOW!”

As the transmission ended, the new Agate scowled at them. “Why did you do that?! Even if it’s a geminal, the humans have enough armaments to handle any hybrid on Earth!”

Amethyst shook her head. “Noooot this one…”

  
  


“I thought geminals weren’t supposed to get this big!” Doug heard a yell from Connie as he sprinted for the reinforced guardhouse, along with several of his coworkers. The massive THUD coming from behind them accelerated their paces even further.

“They _aren’t_!” He shouted back to his daughter, who was currently being carried underhand by a Rose Quartz that had gone outside to see how things were going.

The monkey seemed to be ignoring them, instead focusing on examining the large drop from the walls that it had climbed. Well, large for the group that was running away.

For the super-sized monster, it probably wasn’t that big. How the world nobody had ever noticed something like this, he had no idea.

“Inside, now!” Doug snapped, waving at the door to the guardhouse - the heavily reinforced guardhouse. Everyone sped inside, not even bothering to slow down until they were safe. For the moment, at least, there was no telling how long that thing would stay outside...

“EVERYONE! There’s a geminal outside attacking the walls, all interior guards are to immediately go and reinforce the ones on the exterior! Everyone who’s not a guard, get into the safe rooms, NOW!” Came a sudden voice over the loudspeakers - Doug wasn’t good with voices, but it sounded like an Amethyst.

“Thank the stars…” the Rose Quartz sounded as relieved as the rest of them, not that anyone blamed her.

“OOO-OOOOOOOOOHHH!” Came a howl from outside, seemingly in response to the announcement.

“Connie, get into the Palace, now!” Doug ordered, pointing to the Warp Pad inside the guardhouse. The rest of the guards looked a little surprised by this. “It’s a lockdown, it’s authorized for everyone to go inside till it ends!” He snapped, giving them all a dark look. Not even Rose argued.

“Um, okay!” Connie nodded, and quickly jumped on the Warp Pad, willing it up and away. And within a second, a stream of light carried her off.

And two seconds later, the light died away.

  
  


“Okay, um… wow…” If someone had told Connie earlier today that she’d be inside one of the Palaces of Pink Diamond by the end of the day, she probably wouldn’t have believed them.

And yet, here she was, inside.

It was every bit as amazing as her twelve-year-old mind had imagined it could be.

The walls, they were… plants! Branches and trunks of trees that had somehow shaped into the form of rooms and tunnels and - was that a CHAIR growing out of the floor?! “This must have taken so much effort to make… or would that be grow?” She should probably go and find somewhere that was safe, while the geminal was out there, but…

Well, it wasn’t like anywhere else in the Palace wouldn’t be as safe as the next room, right? And this room was already so cool… Keeping an eye and ear out for anyone else, slowly, Connie entered the living halls of the Palace.

  
  


“So how did that thing get that big, anyways?!” Amethyst demanded, walking down one of the halls, with Steven behind her, and a screen floating in the air across from them.

If most of the gems in the Empire had seen Amethyst demanding answers from a Diamond’s Pearl, they probably would have shattered her on the spot, or done their best to forget what they had seen.

Pearl just looked as confused as she felt. Which was a great deal. “I wish I could tell you, Amethyst.”

This was, simply put, the wrong answer. “OH, so is wittle Amethyst not good enough for the big important secret that you’re keeping?! Am I too unimportant, too defective for all the stuff with the project that EVERYONE KNOWS ABOUT BY NOW!?”

Pearl looked shocked, and hastily backpedaled. “No, no! Amethyst, I don’t know either how it got so big! That’s - the last I knew, all of the geminals that were created by Coral are accounted for! And none of them ever reached that size in the first place!”

Amethyst’s anger died out quickly, after hearing that. “Okay, um… how did that thing get so big, then?”

Pearl frowned. “I wish I knew. Geminals are supposed to be stable now, though. It would take centuries for one to grow to that size, and there's no way an anomaly like that wouldn't have been recorded at Coral during developments.”

“Maybe one snuck out!” Steven said from the side, before waving. “Hi Pearl!”

Pearl smiled. “Hello, Steven. What do you think of the Palace?”

“It’s cool! Well, so is the big geminal too, if it doesn’t attack anyone.”

“Yeah, it hasn’t done much yet, P…” Amethyst shrugged. “Maybe we can just put it in a cell or something. Do we have any that big?”

“We do not. I’ll see to it that one is made immediately, though.”

Steven looked eager. “Could I keep her as a pet? We could name her Queen Kang!”

Pearl sighed. “Monkeys are not pet material, Steven. And we don’t know how she was made - we need to be sure that she isn't dangerous before we even consider that."

“Shouldn’t you be listening to what your Diamond wants, Pearl?” Amethyst asked from the side, grinning.

Pearl gave her a flat look. Before she could say anything, though…

“Oh, hello!” To Amethyst’s surprise, a young woman crossed around the corner in front of them, stopping midstep and bowing a little to the gem.

“Oh, hey!” Amethyst waved at her absently, before realizing something. Steven hadn’t said hello. “Dude?” She asked, turning to him and realizing why he hadn’t said hi.

He was staring at the girl, with a blush on his cheeks for a second or two before he shook his head.

Ooooh yeah, he had it bad. But before she could start teasing him, Amethyst - and everyone else there - heard something else.

A low growl - low in both volume and in tone, low enough that the ground all but vibrated with it.

And before they could wonder what it came from, the wall burst open. On the other side was the monkey geminal.

And it didn’t look all that friendly, now.

Amethyst didn’t even think once as she pulled out her whip and YELLED.

“RUN!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one took a while, yeah. I am mostly okay with how it turned out - but also, thinking that I might focus more on one shots than a single big story. That is all.


	5. Starts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something begins, in several places at once.

Steven and Connie didn’t even hesitate for a second before bolting - away from the wall, and away from the monkey that seemed to have suddenly turned into a real-life Queen or King  Kang.

Neither of them were sure what might happen to Amethyst, but they knew without doubt that they’d just get in the way.

“ALL QUARTZES AND HUMAN GUARDS, CONVERGE ON SECTOR 7 AT ONCE! THE GEMINAL HAS GOTTEN INTO THE PALACE! ALL WEAPONS ARE AUTHORIZED FOR OPEN USAGE!” Screamed someone on the other side of the broadcast system, earning another screech from the geminal behind them - and a corresponding roar from Amethyst, who wasn’t anywhere near loud enough to overpower the monstrous monkey’s volume.

Steven and Connie ran even faster. “That way!” Connie yelled, pointing to a side passage up ahead, leading off from the main tunnel - and it was small enough that the geminal wouldn’t be able to fit. Now it was just a matter of getting there.

“GROOOOARRR!”

“Agh - RUN!” Came Amethyst’s voice from behind them, with the sound of massive feet scrabbling against the wooden floor.

Both Steven and Connie somehow picked up their pace.

_ Justabitmore! _ Steven furiously thought to himself as he sprinted. _ Justabit- _

“Look out!” Connie yelled, tackling Steven a few feet to the left - just as a open hand almost as big as him closed around the place where he had been a few seconds ago.

“Thanks!” Steven gasped, as Connie gasped for breath, before realizing neither of them were moving.

And that while he could hear shouts from nearby, the monkey’s other hand was heading for the two of them.

Steven’s reaction was almost entirely unconscious.  _ NO. NO!  _ He couldn’t let her - let them get hurt!

They couldn’t get hurt, theycouldn’tget-

“Whoa!”

Realizing that he wasn’t being squished, Steven opened his eyes, then blinked.

Why was everything tinted pink?

Oh, now it was black!

“I - How are you doing this?!” Connie looked at him in awe. “We - that geminal should have scooped us up!”

“Doing what?” Steven sounded - and was - confused.

Connie rapped the bubble, and Steven realized what she meant as he helped her up. “Uh - I think it’s like my mom’s bubble!” He replied, before realizing what he’d said. “I MADE MOM’S BUBBLE!”

“Mom’s - you’re a hybrid?!” Connie was stunned for a second before she looked amazed and started shaking his outstretched hand. “I’m Connie. What’s your name?”

Steven felt his face flush red-pink like his mother and father’s as Connie smiled at him. “Hi my name is Steven.”

“GET IT!”

The otherwise-adorable bonding moment was interrupted by a chorus of roars, this time more than matching the massive ape’s cry. This time, of pain.

Then, a massive hand reached out, and scooped the two up. Five others punched the monkey in the face.

“Are you two all right?” A large pink Rose Quartz fusion asked in a very concerned tone, pulling the bubbled Steven and Connie up to her face as she absently continued pummeling the geminal with her remaining fist, then moving back as the other two fusions moved past her - an even larger Amethyst and an two-gemmed Opal that had climbed onto the geminal’s face and was currently punching it in the eye.

“Uh, we’re fine! Hi!” Steven gave a friendly wave to the massive Quartz that was holding him and Connie up - the latter of which was looking in poorly-concealed awe at her and Steven’s savior. She wasn’t saying anything yet, though.

“Good! That’s good.” Rose Quartz said, setting the two of them down in her massive hands, before crouching. “You’re doing great - now, do you think you can bring down this bubble, Steven?”

“Yeah!” Eager to please the gem(s) that had saved him and Connie, Steven shook his head eagerly, and stuck out his arms. “HRRRGHGH!” 

Nothing happened. 

Steven didn’t notice this at first, and marched forwards with his eyes shut. “Okay! There we-” 

Thunk. 

“Ow!” Despite being worried that the bubble hadn’t vanished, Connie giggled a little, and Rose Quartz started chuckling as well. Then, she frowned and stopped.  _ Should we be laughing at him? It’s kinda funny, though. But he’s - we know who he is, it’s still funny! That doesn’t mean you should laugh at him! _

“HRRRRGGGH!” Not really noticing this seeming argument between the gem(s) who had saved his life, Steven kept grunting, trying to get the bubble to vanish.

Once again, nothing happened.

“...Should we be worried?” Connie asked out loud, though it wasn’t clear to who.

With Steven currently straining to try and get rid of the bubble, the other two fusions having driven the geminal back into a large force of Jaspers and humans who were shooting at it, and the Rose Quartz fusion not noticing anything due to her argument, her question went unanswered.

“Connie!”

“Dad!” Connie perked up as she ran to the far side of the bubble, where her father had run up, relief visible in his eyes and body. “You’re okay!”

Doug nodded, looking just as relieved as Connie did. “I certainly never imagined something like this would happen earlier today when I brought you here, dear.”

“It’s okay, dad.” Connie looked somewhat overwhelmed. “I’m not sure I would have believed you if you had known and told me.”

“Probably not.” Doug agreed, before noticing that Steven was still grunting. And the bubble was still there.

Oh, and the Rose Quartz fusion on the other side of the bubble had seemingly fallen apart into her four components. “Steven!”

“Oh! Sunny!” Steven waved at the Rose Quartz that had run up to the bubble, her gem positioned on her neck, and giving a worried look. “It’s great to see you!”

“It’s good to see you too! Now can you get this bubble to come down?” Sunny asked, still beaming. “We need to get you back home, or your mother’s going to have all of us assigned to the kennel latrines or something! She’s got to be delighted you made a bubble, but there’s no way that she won’t be mad you had to make it at all!” Steven’s mother had been waiting for some time for gem powers to emerge to emerge in her son. But the circumstances could have been so much better.

“I’m trying! I… don’t know how, though.” Steven looked sadly at the bubble surrounding him and Connie. “I’m not like you guys, I don’t know how to take it down.”

“Don’t worry!!” Sunny didn’t seem all that bothered by this. “It took us a while to realize what we could do, and your mom needed even longer than we did to figure it out!”

“...But what if we starve?!” Connie demanded, catching the attention of the Quartzes.

“Oh. Right…” Sunny looked slightly downcast for a second. Then, she proved where her name had come from and brightened up again. “We can go get your mom!”

“Actually, if I may?” Doug interjected, walking around the bubble his daughter and Steven were trapped in. “I have an idea.”

“You think that you can break a Rose Quartz bubble?” Sunny looked amused. “Feel free to try, but I think you’re kind of doomed there.”

Doug didn’t even bother disagreeing, and just reached into his pack, before drawing out a gem disruptor. Comprehension dawned in the eyes of the gems who were watching. 

“Are you sure that’s going to be safe for them!?” One of the other Rose Quartzes demanded, stepping forward hastily, but staying a few steps back. “They might get hurt!”

“They’ve both got human bodies! They’ll be fine.” Doug snapped on the disruptor as he shot down the argument. “And it’s either that, or we wait till… what’s your name, kid?” He asked, curious.

“I’m Steven!”

“Well, until Steven figures out how to get this thing to drop, which could take hours!” Doug snapped back. “Do you want to leave them in there for all that time, while we have something that could get them out?”

The Rose Quartz blinked at the tone she’d been addressed with. A human was speaking to her like that? While the gem in question paused, Doug stabbed the bubble with the disruptor he’d been given after arriving at work, with the results being swift as electrical lines appeared all over the bubble Steven had generated.

But to everyone’s surprise, it didn’t pop. Frowning, Doug drew the disruptor back, before preparing to stab it a second time. Then, he stopped. “Are you two okay?”

“I’m fine, dad!” Connie replied, giving him a thumbs-up. 

Steven nodded, before stabilizing himself against the side of the bubble. “I kind of feel like my head itches. But do it again, i’ll try to make it go away!”

Nodding, Doug stabbed the bubble with his disruptor once more, digging it in deeper than last time.

And with Steven this time trying to bring it down, after a few seconds of contact, the bubble popped.

“Connie!” Doug looked extremely relieved to say the least, as he dropped down to examine his daughter. “Did that ape hurt you? Or him?”

“I’m fine! So is Steven, I think. And that bubble was… kind of cool, too.” Connie sheepishly looked back at the hybrid, who was presently being fawned over by two of the Rose Quartzes, with the other two watching from a distance, and one of them apparently making a call to… someone. “He was already inside the Palace, though…”

Doug just sighed and quietly spoke to her. “He’s a hybrid, dear. Of everyone here, the rules only apply to me and you. And all my coworkers down at the wall…”

_ The wall where the humans all get assigned to work. _ Went unspoken.

“That thing’s going to be investigated, right?” One of the other guards spoke up, pointing to the massive monkey that had finally been shot and pummeled into submission. 

Sunny nodded. “Probably, yeah. I’m pretty sure that it’s not natural for something like that to come from Coral. And it shouldn’t have been this aggressive, either.”

“I think that it’s a … she?” Doug was not looking at the geminal, which was currently being covered in restraints to be transported to… somewhere.

“Whatever.” Sunny didn’t look all that concerned, and shook her hand dismissively.

“Sunny?” Looking down at the planet’s “Prince”, as humans put it, Sunny nodded. “Can I keep her?”

Sunny’s immediate reaction was to snort. “I think that your mom’s going to say no, kid.”

“But-” Steven began to pout, but he was cut off by one of the other Rose Quartzes speaking up.

“And you need to get back to your living space, kid. You’re not safe down here!”

“But I’m fine!” Steven protested, and he was indeed untouched - neither he or Connie had been hurt besides being tired from moving too fast.

“If it helps, ma’am?” Doug spoke up hesitantly from behind them. “I don’t think I will let Connie out of my sight for the rest of the day, and I imagine his mother will say the same.”

“There we go! Advice from another parent!” One of the other Rose Quartzes piped up, before looking at Doug. “And actually, you need to head up there too. Humans aren’t usually allowed in the Palaces, we’ll call you a lawyer and-”

“Enough!” One of the other Rose Quartzes snapped, an authoritarian “taking-no-coprolite” tone in her voice. “The Palace was under attack, his actions were justified when he sent his daughter inside.” Doug and Connie both looked visibly relieved by that. Humans had a less-than-stellar record of innocence in gem courts and affairs, and going into a Diamond’s Palace without explicit permission would have easily counted as gem affairs.

She wasn’t done talking, though. “But we still need him up there. We need someone to debrief who was at the wall, and we need to make sure the Palace is secure before we can do it here.”

Doug looked stunned. “I - you’re taking me - us - to the Moon Palace?”

“Yup. Feel free to be flattered, by the way. It’s been fourteen years since anyone new’s been allowed up there.” 


	6. Talks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven, Doug, and Connie arrive on the Moon Base. And after they arrive, they meet somebody who isn't who they appear to be.

Steven was babbling. “So, I can probably get you a tour of the Palaces! If you want to go, I mean, I don’t want to assume that you want to go, you were just going to the Treetop Palace because your dad had to watch-”

“I’d love to, Steven!” Connie quickly interjected, hoping to cut the young hybrid’s spiel off before he forgot to breathe. They’d only gotten a call from one of the Bixbites at the Moon Palace a few minutes ago and been cleared to come up. One of the Rose Quartzes was already leading them through the Palace on a tour - one that Steven was using to talk.

Doug smiled a little as he watched the young boy try to break through his daughter’s shell, something that she’d never really been able to do before. He wasn’t sure why the hybrid had apparently taken a liking to her - but hopefully he’d be successful and become her friend. She’d never truly been able to stay in contact with anyone from school - and she’d always loved the idea of visiting the Palaces of Pink Diamond and other such places.

“All right, everyone on the warp pad!” Came the voice of the Rose Quartz in front of them who had been slowly guiding them through an impromptu (and pleasant) tour of the Palace. “We’re off to the moon!” A more serious look took over her face as she looked at Doug and Connie. “And listen, okay? The Moon Palace is normally off limits to anyone who’s not supposed to be there - if it wasn’t for the debriefing we need for that geminal, you wouldn’t be allowed up there.”

The only two humans in the room nodded quickly. “We understand.” Doug replied, his training as a guard coming to mind. And while the Palaces in general were off limits to humans except for certain touring areas that were typically booked years in advance, the Moon Palace was off limits even to the vast majority of gems, and it was located right in the middle of Moon City (also off limits except for the shipyards and a few vacation areas). 

Pink Diamond had apparently declared long ago that since humanity had Earth mostly to themselves and the need to keep it stable, gemkind would establish itself on the moon where this wasn’t the case. 

Supposedly, the satellite had once been a solid sphere-like celestial body like Earth was.  Doug always found that hard to believe. 

  
  
  


Huffing as her form shifted downwards, Pink Diamond entered the briefing room. This wasn’t supposed to be something she was supposed to be worried about, according to the official rules of the Authority. Diamonds were supposed to have better things to do. Interrogation and debriefing was typically handled by either Anyolites or Thulites - she shouldn’t be concerning herself with this, and there actually was one of her Thulites in the room with her. 

But  **her son** had been attacked  _ twice in one day _ . Regulations could be thrown into a black hole, as far as she cared.

“Are you all right?” one of her Inner Court’s Thulites asked from besides her. Her form was a little more human in appearance than that of most gems - like hers was right now. Enough that with her light pink skin tone and her gemstone hidden, she could have easily passed herself off as a human or a hybrid unless you took a careful look.

“I’ll be all right as soon as I see he is.” She replied. “What’s the word on the things that attacked him?”

“The geminals? Their autopsies have been placed as top priority per your orders.” Thulite replied “But they’ll still need time to examine them for any non-obvious differences from the normal geminals.”

“What DO we know so far, then?” Came the response, which was clearly an order mixed with question.

After scrolling for a few seconds through her scroll, the Thulite gave her reply.

  
  
  


“So that’s what a Galaxy Warp looks like.” Doug noted as the four of them - gem, hybrid, and two humans - stepped off the warp pad. He had always known that they didn’t really look all that impressive or different compared to the average warp pad or warp tunnel, and he’d seen plenty of those. But this was the object that had allowed gems to connect Earth and humanity to nearly three hundred other planets, before the warp tunnels became commonly used. 

Given how ostentatious the Empire’s designers could be sometimes, he’d really thought they’d go for some form of decoration on the only warp on Earth that led straight to the main Palace of a Diamond. It was larger than usual, at least.

Both the pad - and as he took in what was in front of him, the Palace.

“What, were you expecting more?” Rose Quartz didn’t look surprised. “We haven’t really updated the Galaxy Warp that much since the warp tunnels became mass producible. The impressive stuff is inside the Palace.”

“Is it true that outside of the human areas that the gems have never bothered to create an atmosphere on the moon that’s breathable?” Connie asked as the four walked off the warp pad that led into the entry section of the Palace.

Rose Quartz just shrugged, her shoulder gem moving with her arms. “I’m not one of the people who’s into that stuff, and I’ve never heard of a human leaving the areas they’re supposed to stay in up here. So probably, but I couldn’t say for sure.”

“Well, I guess if you don’t bring humans up here that often then you’d only put oxygenated air in the areas we’re supposed to go! Since it’s going to be really hard bringing up enough to make sure you can get everyone accommodated for if you had to put it everywhere on the moon.” Connie swiftly began mentally running through a few thoughts, before adding in “Oh, and what’s your nickname, Rose Quartz?”

“Just call me Rose.” The Quartz in question waved her hand dismissively. “Or 4ET. It’s my cut number.”

“You don’t have a nickname?” Doug asked, surprised. Nearly all of the gems that he knew did, and while what they liked to be called could vary… it was generally accepted that everyone past a certain age had them.

“It’s private.” 4ET replied without explaining further.

  
  
  


“-the building was drained of the magic used to keep it up, also.” Thulite finished reporting, frowning as she read the report she’d gotten.

“Drained?” Rose Quartz sounded interested as she spoke, but not in a good way.

“Yes. I’m not sure how it’s possible, but the pocket dimensions inside were… the magic used to power them was somehow drained by the geminal. It seems that’s how it was able to create those monsters that attacked Steven and the rest of the city.” Thulite looked slightly nervous as she continued. “This may not be my place to ask, but... I presume that the Coral project hasn’t been commissioned to create such life forms?”

A frown came in reply, but before any words could enter the air, the door opened.

“Steven!” Rose felt lighter as her son entered the room, crossing it within a second and plucking him up.

“Mom!” Steven was surprised for a second at the familiar voice coming from a Rose Quartz-presenting gem, before he hugged her. “Why are you in-” He quietly started to ask.

“I’m being sneaky, sweetie.” She whispered back to him, before giving a friendly smile to Doug and Connie as they walked in. “Hello, there!”

Doug frowned for a second, before mentally shrugging.

Connie wasn’t quite as restrained, when it came to something confusing. “Hello, miss Rose and miss Thulite.” Then, she looked up at the Diamond that she didn’t know was borrowing the form of a Rose Quartz and blinked, before sitting down. “You’re Steven’s mother?”

“Why, yes!” Rose looked pleased, before responding with her own question. “How did you know? It could have been Thulite.” The other pink gem gave them a neutral look, now all business.

Connie answered without hesitation. “Her hair’s too spread out. If Steven was Thulite’s son his hair likely wouldn’t be that curly. That, and you were sitting up when we got in here and she was sitting down, miss Rose.”

Thulite, whose hair went straight down her shoulders without any sign of curling up, didn’t look offended in the slightest. Rose, whose hair went down even further and probably held some sort of record with how curly it was, seemed to accept this as a good answer.

“All right, can we proceed? We’ve received numerous reports and videos of the geminals, and the damage they caused. But, having someone who was there for both incidents can be helpful.” Thulite interjected.

“Both?” Doug sounded puzzled.

“There was an incident earlier today. A moss geminal made its way to Bangkok - two buildings have been evacuated, and we’re going to have to demolish and rebuild them, it seems. Steven was nearby at the time.” Thulite scrolled through her holoscreen. “The geminal spawned multiple moss monsters, as well, and while nobody was killed, we’ve got several poofed gems and a few humans who are currently in the hospital.”

“Um… did any of them go after Steven?”

The somewhat out of the blue question made Thulite blink, and she scrolled over before nodding. “There were actually two spawn who directly tried to attack Steven and the Pearl who was with him…”

“Hm…” Connie looked curious. “If it helps, I think the monkey geminal went after him too. I was closer to it than he was since he was running faster, and it tried to grab him instead of me. Do you have any video of that?”

Rose was already typing into her own holoscreen. What she saw didn’t seem to make her happy. “We do. Thank you for bringing it to my attention, miss-” Rose paused mid-sentence as she saw something on the screen.

After a few seconds, she got up and walked around the table.

“Mom, what are you doing?” Steven looked worried, and so did Doug.

But before either of them could wonder why, Rose Quartz had scooped Connie into a hug, with a tear falling from one eye.

“Thank you for saving him…” she muttered quietly. Connie was squirming a little as she was touched, but didn’t complain too much.

Then, without warning, Rose semi-carefully set Connie back down on the couch and walked back over to her seat. Doug looked slightly flabbergasted at how a Rose Quartz had just hugged his daughter. Steven looked slightly jealous.

“Thank you for bringing that to my attention, Connie. I wasn’t aware that the geminal had directly targeted Steven… I will have to go over our records.” Thulite scribbled something on the screen. “Now then, Doug, you said that you first encountered the geminal at the wall with several of your coworkers…”

  
  
  


“...And that’s it.” Doug finished. “After that, we came up here.”

“Thank you, Mr. Maheswaran. I believe that’s everything. You, Connie, and Steven will be going home now as soon as we can get you all guards...” Rose nodded.

“Home?” Steven sounded upset. “Mom, I was going on vacation!”

“That was before you were attacked twice in one day!” Rose Quartz shot back. “Until we get to the bottom of these geminals, you’re going back to Beach City.”

“But MOOOOMMM!”

Doug, Connie, and Thulite just looked on awkwardly at the young child pouting at his mother, before Connie broke the silence.

“Steven, could I ask you something?”

Realizing that he was embarrassing himself in front of the cute girl who’d saved him earlier, Steven’s sort-of pouting demeanor went away. “Sure!”

“Um… what’s Beach City’s Warp Code?”

“Uh, it’s…. 62943072!” Doug looked shocked as Steven cheerfully gave his daughter potentially-classified information.

Even if he was all for Connie making friends, this could be very bad if some gem decided they didn’t want a human girl meeting a hybrid. And there were two gems in the room who were both going to pass the report along, potentially all the way to their Diamond…

Across the room, Rose remembered what Amethyst had mentioned to her a while ago, before she arrived.

Maybe she’d get to set up another playdate. Steven hadn’t met any new friends in quite a while, being cooped up in Beach City.

  
  
  


 “Bye, Connie!” Steven waved again as Connie and Doug (who’d been reassured by Thulite and Rose that neither he or Connie would get in trouble for meeting with Steven, or going to the Moon) waved goodbye, and the Warp Pad activated, sending them back home. 

The second they were gone, Rose Quartz sighed, and let her form shift back to her normal self.

“Mom, why did you turn into Rose while they were here?” Steven asked, looking way up at her face, a curious look on his.

Pink Diamond smiled. “Sweetie, we have been trying to keep you a secret for the last fourteen years. And there’s no way they would have treated you normally if they knew the truth.”

“But… well, couldn’t you have ordered them to not say anything about what happened up here? They would have listened, right?”

“I could. But it’s easier to keep a secret this way.” She replied, before hesitating. “And Steven… they wouldn’t have treated you as a friend, if they knew you were a Diamond like me from the start. You’re going to be leading them one day. And… people don’t treat their rulers the same way they do their equals, their friends, or the people who work for them.

She’d seen it happen before, on every level of human and gem society. Nobody had ever really come up with a political or social solution for it. 

Of course, with her sisters in charge, the solution would never be implemented anyways even if they had one.

"And I think that you've been up far too long today. Let's go get dinner!" She added, deciding to change the subject and walking off.

"Oh! Let's go see what music Dad made today!" Steven cheered, and ran to go see his family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m aware that Rose/Pink is acting somewhat OOC here compared to her usual self. This is intentional - she’s not the same person she was in canon. 
> 
> More exposure to the other Diamonds (even if it’s minimal), learning that Steven was attacked twice in one day, and raising and fearing for him is the starting point for all of that.
> 
> However, even at rest she’s not as carefree as she is in canon, even if she’s still the same person. She’s got political and social issues to worry about here, instead of the freedom she had in canon (beside capturing the occasional corrupted gem).


	7. Dinnertime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before Doug and Connie leave to go back to Earth, they stay for dinner (hours on the Moon Palace aren't in the same time zone as India's).
> 
> This is mostly here to update the story, it's more of a Slice of Life than anything for the plot. Sort of a oneshot, really...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place "between" the start and end of chapter 6, though there might be some continuity issues due to me not having looked over the last chapter for a few months, but I don't think there are.

Pearl, most of the time, enjoyed her job. Working with Pink was a job that mostly just had her do one of two things - going around the Moon Base and interacting with the other residents (most often Steven, or Bismuth when she visited). Or just standing next to her (and sneaking a look at her attractive form every so often…) and either reading, practicing swordplay or something else. She hadn’t stood still in place for decades (unless the other Diamonds were calling and they had to keep up appearances).

But then, sometimes she had to do Pink’s job, to ensure that she could take her own breaks without anyone who wasn’t supposed to notice realizing that Pink Diamond  _ wasn’t  _ working as much as she was supposed to be...

And considering she only had to do it sometimes, and nowhere near as much as Pink did… well, she was still amazed by how well Yellow had been able to handle this sort of workload.

Maybe it was just because she had never known anything else.

Well, at least they’d agreed to have their “swap” scheduled during dinnertime. It wasn’t like she would have attended that anyways.

  
  
  


“So, you’re like, a Ruby?”

“Well, no. I work  _ with  _ Rubies!” Doug clarified to the Amethyst who was talking to/at him, fighting down nervousness. He’d never been surrounded by this many gems before in his life - and Connie…

“Wow! So, what are your training sessions like up here?” A rather large Jasper was looking unsure how to react as Connie gazed up at her admiringly.

“Well, mostly we spar with each other and practice with melee weapons…” Jasper eventually replied, still looking awkward.

She could understand why her Diamond had invited the two to stay for the Palace’s dinner, but… why was this human child asking just her everything? She was not good with Steven, and she had known him for his entire life...

...Well, she wasn’t scared, at least. Doug wasn’t sure if he should be disturbed that she was reacting so well (“nerding out”) to the superpowered protectors of their Diamond or happy that she was finding it easier to bond with somebody at all.

Well, he would have been happier if the “Steven” boy that she had saved earlier had approached her so far. Where was he, anyways?

Doug started to look around the room, absently noticing the many different gem types scattered around - that Thulite who had debriefed them was in the corner, with a Hyacinth sitting next to her, a drink in front of her. At a first look, Steven was nowhere in sight… but there was plenty else to see.

It was truly an amazing testament to how well Pink Diamond’s personal Court seemed to get along. The handful of times he’d gone off Earth to the worlds or stations ruled by the other Courts… a gathering like this was unheard of, as far as he knew.

Quartzes, Zircons, that Spinel who was juggling three Rubies and a Sapphire onstage… most Court gatherings, as far as he knew, were completely wrapped up in formality and rules.

Of course, their Diamond was nowhere in view, so maybe that had something to do with it? It was always far easier to relax, it seemed, when your boss wasn’t looking over your shoulder. He didn’t exactly know what Pink Diamond’s relationship was like with her subordinates.

Oh, Connie had moved on, it seemed. To… was that a cooking stall?

  
  
  


“Could I have some chicken curry, please?” Connie was in an utterly euphoric mood. She was on the Moon Palace! There were gems all around her - she’d only seen them at a distance before, and never so many!

“You got it!” The oddly short Amethyst (was she off-color? She wasn’t aware Pink Diamond allowed off-colors to serve her, but cooking was hardly something that gems usually did. Not that Pink Diamond was the sort of person who’d kill somebody if she could avoid it, as far as she had heard. She still couldn’t believe she was in the same location as her Diamond!)

“Thanks! When should I come back?”

“Give us… twenty minutes!” Amethyst had already turned around to the myriad of other gems that were cooking up a vast variety of food in a somewhat-offset kitchen, with more refrigerators and freezers than she had seen together in her life.. “Guys, another curry!”

One of the other gems - was that an Rosolite? - gave her a nod. There was a fairly large pot in front of her - it was the size of one of the hyper-sized bowls that her grandparents always used to help cook for everyone when there was a family gathering. “Are you doing all this by request?”

“Well, we only really do the simple stuff here unless it’s a special night, I think. Like… cuisine one particular Facet or whatever.” Amethyst grinned. “The - our Diamond keeps a bunch of us up here because we can cook, though - she always loves it when we cook!”

Connie didn’t really notice the slip up at the start of Amethyst’s sentence, too busy being starry-eyed. “Is she here?!” She asked eagerly, looking around the room for a 12-foot pink woman. Or even a 6-8 foot pink woman, at least if she matched all the pictures that she had seen and the cartoons she’d watched!

Amethyst had already walked off to start cooking Connie’s meal - but the Beryl who walked up to take the next order had already overheard most of the conversation. “Sorry, but… Pink Diamond couldn’t make it. Work to do, ruling the Pink Court and all.”

It was, technically, true. Beryl just distinctly neglected to mention the slightly “off-color” Rose Quartz moving among the crowd nearby, sitting next to Steven and a conveniently empty space between them that nobody else made any move to sit in.

“Oh well. Thank you, madame Beryl!” Connie nodded and ran off again. There was so much to see here, so many people! Gems - and there was… well, Steven was closer to human than a gem was, at least. Even if she couldn’t see her Diamond, this was still so cool!

  
  
  


“Dad… what should I do?” Steven whispered to the seat next to him, where it looked like nobody was sitting.

Looks could be deceiving. “I didn’t become friends with your mother until after I talked to her.” Came a voice that appeared to be coming out of nowhere. 

“Well, you have to go talk to her more before you can do anything like be friends, Steven.” Besides the place where the voice that came from nowhere was, his mother spoke up, seemingly more relaxed than she had been before.

“But, she’s… oh stars…” Steven tried to talk again, but the second the young girl who had saved him and was currently having a rather starstruck reaction to all the gems she was meeting came to mind, words failed him.

This went unnoticed by neither of his parents.

“Do you think she’s pretty, Stchu-Ball?”

“I suppose that she is rather likable, for a child her age…” Rose Quartz looked thoughtful, as she looked over at the girl her son seemed to be crushing on. She did need to think of a way to thank her for saving him, still. Showing hospitality was just being polite after they’d gotten brought up here to be debriefed. 

Steven looked mortified as both Rose and (under the cloak) Greg gave him grins. “N-no! Don’t - let me talk to her! You’ll mess up my funky flow!”

Without saying anything else, he jumped off the bench and ran towards the food kiosk where Connie still was.

“...Funky flow?” Rose briefly reflected that some gems might think shapeshifting a mouth on their lower arm to whisper a message without moving her actual mouth was beneath a Diamond, but she had a question she wanted answered.

“I think it might be slang or something. I'm kind of out of touch with that stuff, though…” Greg replied.


	8. Homebound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven and Greg both get back home! And things go as usual from there, really - specifically, Steven says hi to everyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This came out fairly fast, but I wouldn't advise you to get too used to it - I was trying to get this one out soon, but I am not sure I can do this on a constant basis due to my attention span.

DING!

As the Warp Pad’s transferral ended, Steven took a look around the small chamber and the passages leading out of it, sighing at all the familiar surroundings - familiar was nice, but he’d been looking forward to unfamiliar for months now.

“Hey, Steven, cheer up! Your mom’ll let you leave again, someday! Soon as we figure out what the heck was causing those geminals to go wild in the first place.” Greg rubbed his son’s head affectionately, Steven smiling again as his father’s touch calmed him down.

“Yeah…” this didn’t stop him from being upset, but it softened the blow a little. “Maybe next time she can come too! Oh! And you too!”

“Eh… still gotta do my job, Steven. Singing can take up time, and your mom can’t exactly get away from her job that often. I mean, it could happen! I really hope it does.” Greg started walking forwards, toward the door at the end of the room. “Come on, let’s go get some tv time in or something.”

“Okay!” As Steven and Greg walked forwards, the door in front of them - marked with a pink diamond symbol - opened without pause, revealing what appeared to be a barrier - several planks of wood laid over each other, like a wall. Neither Steven or Greg even slowed down for a second, and as they strode forwards the wall vanished.

Solidified hard light constructs went very well with motion detectors.

The room they walked into was normal, by the standards of human architecture - the walls were made of wood and metal on the outside, although it would be considered odd that there were two beds in the living room (and that both of them had gem metal reinforced frames). And that one was, frankly, almost ten feet square on both sides (having an eight-foot tall romantic partner could lead to awkward requirements).

It was normal otherwise, by all outward appearance. It was further from the town than typical, but still easily within walking distance. It would be hard to spy on it, though - the beach was void of any real cover, and with the steps and the house itself set high off the ground, getting up there wouldn’t be possible without somebody noticing you - from the house itself, or the security cameras that had been miniaturized and set into the surrounding area and which all fed data streams to a local server inside the Temple, right near the Warp Pad that could lead straight to the Moon Palace, and which was observed daily by a gem sent down from it.

The city itself was well out of the way - a small population lived there already, which had been supplanted by the arrival of Steven and his family, as well as the gems that would go on patrol through the area every so often at night under Tanzanite-based invisibility suites.

Pearl had been very insistent that every precaution possible be taken that wouldn’t arouse suspicion, especially considering there would be more than a few “questionable” activities taking place inside. Pink Diamond had agreed (after Pearl had been talked out of a few of her more extreme ideas by Greg).

“Well, home sweet home, huh?” Greg grinned, taking a look at the familiar surroundings where he and Steven had lived since his son turned five.

“Yeah…” Steven still looked upset now that he had been reminded he was missing his vacation.

“Hey, don’t worry! At least you can go see everyone after you get some sleep, you’ve been up all day!” Greg let out a yawn himself, remembering then that it was after dark now - summer or not, it was time for bed.

“But dad-”

“Get to bed, kiddo. You’ve been busy all day, and even if you’re your mom’s kid, you still need to sleep.” Greg yawned, and walked off towards the bed that he sometimes shared with Rose when she was able to spend the night.

Steven pouted. Officially, the caste system said he was able to do whatever he wanted, unless his mother or aunts told him what to do (since he was still a Diamond-in-Training). A human shouldn’t be able to tell him to do anything - there were more than a few gems in the Empire who were not above having a human demoted or killed for speaking out of turn. The caste system had never been very good, however, at handling family relationships. “Okay, dad…”

  
  
  


“Hi, Sadie!”

“Oh! Hey, Steven!” The young and short woman waved to him from the front door of the local food vendor area, where so many of the locals worked at one point or another. “We’re not open yet - wait, weren’t you supposed to be on vacation? It’s all you were talking about recently!”

Steven’s face fell down into a pout. “Mom sent me back. A bunch of stuff happened when I went out, I ran into two geminals in one day…” Then, he perked up. “But I made a new friend! She saved me and everything!”

“Well, sounds like something we can talk about! Soon as Lars gets here…” Sadie sighed, looking at the doors that were still locked. “He was supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago…”

As the first stall to open in the food vendor area of Beach City, Sadie and Lars were typically given the job to open it in the morning by the other vendors, who all tended to open later in the day.

That was partly because most of the town enjoyed grabbing a donut in the morning before they got to work, it should be noted. Steven was not above this himself (and he had long since had a “credit” line set up for him by Pearl).

“Hey.”

“Hi Lars!” Almost the second the familiar voice came through the air, Steven had cheered up a second time, and he waved happily at the young man who looked rather glum as he approached.

“Steven?!” Lars looked rather shocked as the short teenager waved at him eagerly. “Weren’t you supposed to be on vacation?”

“Rose sent him back, apparently.” Sadie added. “He said something about geminals attacking?”

“Like that geminal dinosaur movie series about a lost island where gruesome experiments were carried out?” Lars looked interested now. 

“Uh, I don’t think mom wants me to say anything until they find out more…” Steven looked awkward. 

Lars let out a groan. “My Steven-free time ruined before it starts and I don’t even get a cool story out of it?”

“Just open the store, Lars. Sorry Steven, it’ll probably take a while to get the donuts ready, longer since _ someone _ was late.” Sadie gave Lars a dark look.

“You went to that concert last night too!” Lars protested as he opened the door. “You know how late we were both up, and you gave me the keys!”

“I do, but I still managed to get here on time!”

Deciding that it would probably be rude to intrude further, Steven wandered off without a worry, already wondering what he should do now, since he was still on vacation (and his Diamond training lessons had been put on hold until his “vacation time” ended).

Who else was up this early… oh!

He could always go see Onion!

...Or maybe he’d go see Sour Cream.

  
  
  


“Hey Sour Cream!”

One of the only fully-human non-adults in Beach City raised his head up when he saw Steven coming over, waving at him. “Oh. Hey, Steven. Weren’t you supposed to be on vacation?” He asked, curious.

“Yeah! Er, I got attacked by geminals twice, though, so mom sent me home super early.”

“Oh, really? Aren’t they all supposed to be like, friendly? I mean, they wouldn’t let them out if they weren’t, right?”

“I guess things weren’t always that strict early on? They’re still looking, but there were cases where gem shards may have gotten into the environment unsupervised, mom said.” Steven shrugged.

“Yeah, I read about something like that…. What’s it called, when toxins and stuff concentrate in lower down organisms and affect higher predators more than they do the lower level ones?”

“Uh… amplification?” Steven frowned. He remembered this, it had been one of the things that his lessons had covered, about the harmful effects that Kindergartens could have and why they weren’t ever used to make more than a few hundred gems at once, they took life from everything and it… took equally but it affected the higher organisms more… “Oh, bioamplification!”

“Yeah. That’s it…” Sour Cream nodded, pleased. “Yeah, I guess that explains it. They were always going for trying to make it like, self-perpetuating anyways, right? The gem magic in the animals and everything, so they could do it with us. It’d be ironic if they accidentally succeeded years ago without even realizing it, right?”

“I guess…” Steven shrugged.

“Honestly, I think that might make sense of some of the stuff I see my bro and my stepdad do, y’know?” Sour Cream added. “That language dad made, I’m pretty sure that besides me and mom, only gems can understand it, you know?”

Steven blinked.

That actually might explain a lot...


	9. Just Talking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pink Diamond and Pearl just, well, talk about how things have gone recently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, I wasn't planning to write this particular chapter, but it sort of just hit me as I was typing, and here we are. I don't regret writing this, though, I think it brings up a comparison that wasn't really brought up in canon.

The Moon Palace on Earth was likely the most secure place in the Pink Court, at least technologically - there were countless motion detectors and checkpoints outside the building, manned by the Inner Court of Pink Diamond. It was a task made easier by the fact that explicit orders had been given almost 20 years ago - anybody who didn’t have Pink Diamond’s direct permission to be there (besides the other Diamonds), and the members of the Inner Court themselves - was not to be allowed inside.

Anyone trying to use a surveillance method to look inside would be swiftly turned back by the many safeguards - and really, most of the Palace held no great secrets. Well, besides Steven (and Greg when he could be there).

They were why most of the anti-surveillance measures were clustered near the command room of the Palace and the private rooms of the Diamond(s) in question nearby.

And said protections were why the counter/surveillance measures the Palace used to keep tabs on Earth were inside of them, to boot.

 

“Well, Pearl?” Pink Diamond, after about an hour, asked her partner. ‘What have you found?’ was not said out loud, but clearly implied, given that Pearl had been looking through the records of human citizens on Earth for that entire time.

“Doug and Connie Maheswaran were at the Treetop Palace earlier, and Doug himself was chosen as a guard for the Palace some time ago, due to a combination of family traits… as well as a history of proving himself on the job as loyal and effective.” Pearl read off from the reports she had in front of her on the man in question. “Average performance in school, never showed any great interest in the more advanced levels of learning. He stated in a previous form that he was partly interested in his position due to the traveling opportunities it afforded him, before he met his present partner.”

“No mention of his daughter in that?” Pink Diamond frowned.

Pearl gave another part of the screens she was looking over a glance. “Well, judging from what I have read, he seems to be the parent she is closer to, all things considered. Priyanka Maheswaran is a doctor at the Mumbai medical center, but she typically has brought her daughter, Connie, to work during her vacation from school. Priyanka herself had to go to Bangkok to help with the people hurt by the moss geminal, however. Since Connie wasn’t awake at the time, she went with Doug to his job at the Treetop Palace later in the day. Neither of them have any great marks against them on their personal records, criminal or schoolwise. Model citizens, by all outward appearances.”

“And what do we have on Connie?”

Pearl noticed the odd look in Pink Diamond’s eyes. “Is… something wrong?”

“Just some… old memories, I think. Nothing too bad.” From the glance that Pearl shot her, it was clear she didn’t buy the lie. But she didn’t press any further.

“By all readings… she’s exceptionally intelligent. Due to her father’s job, however, she has been transferred around multiple times in the last several years, and maintaining a consistent school schedule wasn’t possible with her level of Warp access on a daily basis. Her parents both refused to let her stay with any of her relatives in order to give her a more stable life during the school year, and judging by what I’m reading… the two of them seem to be relatively the black sheep of their families, which has had the side effect of isolating their daughter to a degree.”

Pink Diamond felt the memories she had been trying to ignore come back with a vengeance. Her eyes narrowed. “Is there any sign that her parents have been abusing her?”

Pearl started running through the files again, and typed in a set of commands. “We’ll find out in a bit.”

Nodding, Pink Diamond halfheartedly resumed looking through her forms and all the many issues that her Court saw as important or complex enough that her direct assistance was needed for a decision. A depressing number of these issues were arguments between higher class gems (and sometimes humans or hybrids) who had asked her to give her opinion to settle things - who the heir to some dynasty was, an argument over credits and prestige... Sometimes she dealt with political or social arguments serious enough and divisive enough that the direct word of the planet’s sovereign was the only thing that could get (open) arguments to end.

Mostly, it was a lot of paperwork.

After several minutes, the computer let out a ding, signaling that it was done with its search. Pearl started looking over the files in front of her, before typing in again to narrow down what she had found. Pink Diamond continued working as her partner looked further through the narrowed-down section of pictures and videos the Moon’s database had provided of Connie Maheswaran over the last five years - specifically, the points where there was some sign of physical injury.

After a few more minutes, she made her decision, and tapped the shoulder of the gem besides her. “There don’t seem to be any signs of physical abuse that I can see, thankfully.” Pearl reported. “I can’t speak for her mental health or social life, however. Due to her parents both being disconnected from their families, and the constant movement, it seems she hasn’t been able to keep in close contact with any of her other family members her age. And due to said constant movement, making friends and being able to keep them as friends after she has to move away again isn't a likely possibility, given the typical issues with long-distance relationships-”

A rather loud crunching sound rang throughout the room, and Pearl immediately recognized what the source was.

“My - Pink! Calm down!” she turned to the side, grabbing Pink Diamond’s hand where it had started digging into the throne, fingers going through the malleable metal and electronics. “It’s - they’re not here! _They_ aren’t _them_!”

Pink Diamond, for the first few seconds, didn’t hear anything that Pearl was saying. The image of Doug and Priyanka Maheswaran danced within her mind, with Connie in front of them. It should be noted that if anyone had gotten a physical look at the images in her head, Doug would have been overlain in blue, Priyanka in yellow, and Connie in pink oddly similar in tone to her own skin. Her left hand had already started to approach the computer in front of her, to start pulling up legal files and the order for a court case.

“PINK!” And the mental image dispersed, replaced with the rare sight of Pearl physically standing on her control panel. “Pink, calm down. It’s-”

“Pearl, if they are treating her like they treated me, it is _not_ fine at all.” 

“We don’t know they are. I… admit they aren’t perfect. But humans aren’t, and neither are we.” Pearl hopped forwards a little, onto the lap of the still-seated Diamond. “Pink… you do remember what-”

“I can’t just assume that every relationship is like the ones I have, even if there are similarities.” the semi-chastised Diamond replied, reciting the words by memory. She’d needed to remember them in the past.

“Even if they… clearly aren’t taking their daughter into consideration as much as they should, that doesn’t mean it’s due to malice. It could simply be ignorance.” Pearl sighed, not totally believing the words herself. But she’d seen both sides of it before - and the first step to moving through her own problems had been realizing that she had problems. Perhaps the Maheswarans had just never given that idea any serious thought - or kept putting it off. Yellow Diamond and Blue Diamond had always refused to even consider the idea, even before Pink Diamond stopped trying to bring it up.

“...Thank you, Pearl.” As she started on the calming exercises, Pink Diamond felt herself start calming down. “You always know what to say, don’t you?” Her partner just smiled at her, and let it spread over her face.

Then, she laid down on her lap. It was not in the innocent way that Steven sometimes did.

“I’ve known you for thousands of years. We worked through all our issues together, and I was originally created just to serve you.” Pearl scoffed darkly, then smiled. “I’d think I know you well enough to calm you down by now, wouldn’t I?”

“You should have been an Opal, you know.” Pink Diamond’s voice had become tender, the tone one she reserved for only the most private occasions. “You’re…”

“Smart, always know what to say, I know.” Pearl replied. “You really should get some new pickup lines, you know?”

“Only the silliest for you…” Pink Diamond replied, one of her hands already tracing over the keyboard to a certain set of commands that were both preloaded and could be activated with the touch of a button. “Not here, though…”

“I know.” Pearl sighed. “When we’re done?”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gems don't really have much of a sex drive like humans do, but you can probably figure out what they're talking about instead.
> 
> And Rose still has issues. She's working on them, but they are still issues.
> 
> Pearl has issues too, but doesn't have anywhere near as many as she does in canon SU.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this will (probably) be the start of the main plot for the series! I've got a few general ideas for what I want to do. And trust me, while it's inspired by the show, quite a few things will be different here. 
> 
> Religions are still present on Earth, to a large degree, also, despite the gems intervening super early in humanity's history. I won't go into any serious depth with them, but they are here because I can't really imagine a world where religion, or at least belief isn't present to some degree (and for those who complain, gem intervention would probably at best just make people worship Pink Diamond instead, because the Diamonds definitely have a religion/cult centered around them and what they say in gem society).
> 
> The chapters will probably all be fairly short, but hopefully the future ones will be longer than this one. I am not certain i'll be able to appropriately cover the topics in the description, given that I am fairly privileged in my life and have no firsthand experience with them, but i'll try, and I will try to accept any criticism.


End file.
